"Paradise
Is exactly like
Where you are right now
Only much much
Better" Language is a virusLaurie Anderson

Tuesday, April 22, 2003

I mentioned Ursula Le Guin when responding to watching 'Walking With Cavemen' (and that unknown anarchist still hasn't posted the complete text of 'Carrier Bag Theory..' up anywhere, for me to link to) - however, I went and found her delightful website, and came across two quotes I'd like to pass on, the first is from the preface to the short story 'The Day before the Revolution' published in the anthology 'The Winds Twelve Quarters Vol2' It is written by Le Guin 'In Memorial to Paul Goodman 1911-1972'.

"Odonianism is anarchism. Not the bomb-in-the-pocket stuff, which is terrorism, whatever name it tries to dignify itself with, not the social-Darwinist economic 'libertarianism' of the far right; but anarchism, as prefigured in early Taoist thought, and expounded by Shelley and Kropotkin, Goldman and Goodman. Anarchism's principal target is the authoritarian State (capitalist or socialist); its principle moral-practical theme is cooperation (solidarity, mutual aid). It is the most idealistic, and to me the most interesting, of all political theories." I found that here

The second appeals to me even more (the only real difference between us being that it took me a little longer to discover Taoism)

"I read Lao-tzu and the Tao Te Ching at 14. My father had it around the house in the old edition with the Chinese text. I sneaked a peek and was and remain fascinated. Taoism is still an underlayer in my work. It begins talking about what we can't talk about -- an old mysticism that intertwines with Buddhism and is practical and not theistic. Before and beyond God. There's a humorous and easygoing aspect to it that I like temperamentally and that fits in with anarchism. Pacifist anarchism and Lao-tzu have a lot in connection with each other, especially in the 20th century."Quoted in "Summer Reading," Mother Jones May / June 1995 v. 20 no. 3 (p. 34). That quote I found here